TDI (Diesel) EmissionsThis is a discussion about emissions from TDI's. Pro's cons of Diesels (including biodiesel) effects on the environment and how they compare to Gasoline and other fuel sources for Internal combustion engines.

I never understood why people bought those new when the Nissan dealer was selling the Pathfinder for so much less, even the tarted up trim level. At least those looked better than the vomit inducing SUVs Infiniti now has at their lot. Gosh, they just get uglier and uglier as time goes on.

I think Nissan's designers are on some special meds. I don't quite understand it. Same goes for some Lexus designs IMHO. But do not forget. Back in the late 1950s remember how some Studebakers, DeSotos and Chrysler Imperials looked in that period. Holy Toledo! Top on my ugly list was the '58 Packard Hawk and 61 DeSoto.

Sure hope we see CARB compliant diesels or our cities will be as polluted as London. I live in a smog ridden city. I treat kids and seniors suffocating in it. That's why regulations are necessary. They have saved the well being of millions. If you don't like CARB, guess you don't watch your kid trying to breath. Enjoy your smoggy cars with President Trump, just hope you don't have to take your grandkids to the ER to be intubated.

Sure hope we see CARB compliant diesels or our cities will be as polluted as London. I live in a smog ridden city. I treat kids and seniors suffocating in it. That's why regulations are necessary. They have saved the well being of millions. If you don't like CARB, guess you don't watch your kid trying to breath. Enjoy your smoggy cars with President Trump, just hope you don't have to take your grandkids to the ER to be intubated.

I am sorry but this is just a bunch of unsupported by reality anywhere whooy! Auto class diesels exist in such low numbers we could go back to pre-1992 auto class diesel emissions regs for a decade at least before enough of these would exist to start to maybe effect a little air. And in reality auto class diesels like the one's the EPA & CARB have gone after will likely never exist in enough numbers anywhere in the US over the next decade or so even if they were put back to pre-1992 levels to ever have a measurable effect on air quality!!!

.Also both the EPA & CARB have in recent years come out with on the ground collected emissions data saying the real polluters today & for the last three decades are not diesels, but have always been unregulated nor measured today gasoline engine produced Ultra-Fine PMs!!!!

Facts & reality should matter when it comes to passing or enforcing emissions regulations....

FACT based on reality.....the current ridiculously useless over zealous stupid politically not science in any way based auto class diesel engine'd emissions on non-existent cars were never about cleaner air anywhere in the US!!!!That is since no one has sold these auto class offering in the US in any numbers since 1985 Model year!!!!

Where was all of this cleaner air supposed to come from when these stupid useless rules were passed on non-existent for over three decades now auto class diesels!!! Your posted link is BS not based on reality on ground anywhere today!!!

You really want cleaner air:"? Demand we require PM traps on all gasoline engine'd vehicle, that will really give us cleaner air getting rid of the real pollution today which does kill americans every day....

Putting real regulations that will reduce what EPA & CARB study data has said for close to three decades now are what are causing cancer & breathing health issues which lead to real deaths.....

I think Nissan's designers are on some special meds. I don't quite understand it. Same goes for some Lexus designs IMHO. But do not forget. Back in the late 1950s remember how some Studebakers, DeSotos and Chrysler Imperials looked in that period. Holy Toledo! Top on my ugly list was the '58 Packard Hawk and 61 DeSoto.

No special meds. They are under the influence of the French, the country that has a century's worth of producing some off-the-wall automotive ideas. Some good (Michelin's radial ply tires, Renault's Espace), some not so good (Renault Avantime, Citroen's goofy pneumatic steering/suspension in the DS).

Nissan is majority owned by Renault, which is likely why so many newer Nissan products are styled so awful.

If EPA regulations for light duty passenger car emissions are rolled back to a point where VW could have passed (assuming the defeat device is resolved), VW should sue the EPA back; fix, recondition and resell the TDIs sitting at the Pontiac Silverdome stadium and get back offering TDIs again.

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If EPA regulations for light duty passenger car emissions are rolled back to a point where VW could have passed (assuming the defeat device is resolved), VW should sue the EPA back; fix, recondition and resell the TDIs sitting at the Pontiac Silverdome stadium and get back offering TDIs again.

Your argument is just as weak as the one your raging against that ssamlin made with that NYTimes article.

To sum up your rant:
1) You find that the EPA's and CARB's auto diesel emission regulations are over zealous
2) You make this statement because diesel as a proportion of American cars is insignificant.
3) Thus Desiels should go back to pre-1992 emission standards, while gas engines should have to meet the most stringent emissions standards and include particle filters.

How about we just create a level playing field and both car class gas and diesel engines meet the same requirements. And Im all for Particle for filters for both.

How about we just create a level playing field and both car class gas and diesel engines meet the same requirements. And Im all for Particle for filters for both.

That would be fine, except that it would/could never really happen. The two fuels/engines are vastly different to the point that they are at opposing ends in many respects.

Diesels, by their very nature, can run FAR leaner than any gasoline engine ever could. Ever. So NOx will ALWAYS be problematic, but fuel consumption will ALWAYS be stellar and the CO, CO2, HC, and all the rest will be very, very low. Even with no catalyst because there simply isn't anything left to catalyze if they are able to run at their leanest.

Gasoline engines do not have much trouble with NOx, because they are simply burning so much more fuel they gobble up all the free oxygen. But that fuel gobbling means they will ALWAYS use more fuel, and they cannot ever overcome the losses of excess heat generated that go right out the tailpipe.

This is of course all moot since EVs are going to replace both of them, whether we want them, need them, or can even use them. Lots of people who could use them won't. And some of us that can't (at least not with the current tech) won't, but we also don't feel like feeding some gas guzzling pig all the time.

It would make more sense to exploit the benefits of each for the interim. Maybe NOx regulations could be relaxed on cars that get 50+ MPG. Why should a 50 MPG Golf be expected to run cleaner than a Harley Davidson that gets 35 MPG? Yet that is exactly what is happening. Absurd. In the mean time, the F150 remains the top selling vehicle in this country.

I am not really worried, I am stashing up enough high MPG diesels that I will able to bridge the gap until something better comes along or I am dead of old age, whichever comes first.

political based not science based witch hunt against all auto class diesel offerings

Quote:

Originally Posted by evantful

RotaryKid,
Your argument is just as weak as the one your raging against that ssamlin made with that NYTimes article.
To sum up your rant:
1) You find that the EPA's and CARB's auto diesel emission regulations are over zealous
2) You make this statement because diesel as a proportion of American cars is insignificant.
3) Thus Desiels should go back to pre-1992 emission standards, while gas engines should have to meet the most stringent emissions standards and include particle filters.
How about we just create a level playing field and both car class gas and diesel engines meet the same requirements. And Im all for Particle for filters for both.

simple answer, gasoline engine'd vehicles outnumber auto class diesel offerings today and for the last three decades 1,000,000 to ONE! the real pollution then and today related to auto class fleet comes from gasoline engine'd vehicles so they must have regulations to deal with the real pollution they DO PRODUCE!!!!

FACTS MATTER!!! Nothing will ever be gained from the current emissions over-regulation of non-existent nor sold in the US since 1985 model year auto class diesels!!!

The current BS politically not science based going after VWAG over the minuscule numbers of these almost non-existent in our fleet compared to gasoline powered offerings sold today was not a thing to do with cleaner air.... but was always a politically based not science based in any way when it comes to giving us cleaner air effort to make sure these fuel sipping cars are never sold here in any real numbers!!!

It easy to say "Diesels only occupy this X-amount of the market so they should have massively reduced emissions regulation".

The problem is if a modern diesel car, with massively reduced emissions regulation, had to compete against a modern gasoline engine, with massively increased emission regulation, theres a high probability you would begin to see a market shift towards diesels.

A diesel car might be much closer to initial price parity and the overall Fuel efficency difference would be much greater. So thus as was the case in Europe for many years, theres a high probability that diesel cars would occupy a much greater share of the market, if not dominate it.

What would the end result be in all of this? Massively increased emissions from diesel cars.

So the issue is your "facts" don't account for any kind of market change. So lets quit it with some of this political conspiracy against diesels garbage. Because if you want to talk "Facts", then you can't talk unfounded political conspiracy.

I grew up in up state New York. I can drive through dozens of former major industrial cities and towns: Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, virtually the entire Erie Canal/Hudson River belt and can't begin to count the superfund sites that exist. Our creation and consumption comes at a price, a price that in most cases is not paid by the companies that created it decades earlier, but by the tax payers, in the magnitude of billions of dollars, who are left to deal with the aftermath long after those companies no longer exist. So lets not pity VAG for purposely breaking the law. As Donald Trump said "We are a nation of laws".

OilHammer, thanks for your feedback. You're certainly right thats its not as easy to try and simply level the playing field, I just have to imagine a calculation could be made that can account for the fuel burned/fuel efficiency, CO2, particle matter, NOx, etc emitted, etc to create a point of "general emissions competitiveness". And like you said, its all moot because the F-150, and the Silverado/Sierra Twins occupy 1,2,3.

Even if the diesel car market exploded, there's another big chunk of polluters your not mentioning - the oil exploration, extraction, refining and delivery of fuel to your local station. If everyone drove a TDI, and they were 30% more efficient than the average vehicle, you'd see a 30% (or more) drop in all the pollutants from those sources. Seems like it would more than make up for a little spewing from the tailpipes of the TDI's. Especially because you'd be eliminating the majority of gasoline engines and their pollutants as well.

There are so many things that fall into the projected or what not levels of pollution and impact to the environment. Unless you have some parallel universe to draw comparisons with, a lot of it is difficult to say. There are so many things that "being human" paints as a bad thing in general that the only for sure fact that cannot be argued is that if you are born and live here, you are in some way doing harm to the planet.

So trying to at least make decisions in your individual lives that at least lessen your impact is all you can hope for. There are SO many other things I see that make no real sense yet they continue to happen. I'm guilty of that, too.

But I have personally seen, and continue to see, regulatory decisions that have a kernel of good intention but end up creating no real stride forward or worse, a step backward, that ultimately end in a net zero gain towards their intended goal. Targeting hyper efficient cars over grossly inefficient ones is just one example. But when the motoring populace is currently once again smitten with cheap fuel costs, who cares about that?

Aside from car geeks such as myself, our society in general has some strange addiction to automobiles that quite often does not make much rational sense.

Even if the diesel car market exploded, there's another big chunk of polluters your not mentioning - the oil exploration, extraction, refining and delivery of fuel to your local station. If everyone drove a TDI, and they were 30% more efficient than the average vehicle, you'd see a 30% (or more) drop in all the pollutants from those sources. Seems like it would more than make up for a little spewing from the tailpipes of the TDI's. Especially because you'd be eliminating the majority of gasoline engines and their pollutants as well.

Thank you sir! By looking at the most holistic study we have so far in the USA the gasoline and gasoline-hybrids ICE vehicles are still environmentally more costly than modern diesel passenger cars (legally sold in the US). What will close the gap between them then?

Quote:

Originally Posted by wxman

Here is an updated graphic comparing various vehicle technologies and fuels using the latest version of the GREET model (GREET_2016 which was released just a few weeks ago - https://greet.es.anl.gov/ ).

The gasoline vehicle technology is listed as "SIDI (E10)" on the graphic.